'16 weeks of base pay...': Zuckerberg's announcements for fired Meta employees
Meta will offer compensation to all the affected employees which includes severance, healthcare, career support among others. Zuckerberg said that layoff was the last resort.
Meta has decided to cut down its workforce by 13% laying off more than 11,000 employees, one of the biggest in recent times and being the first in Meta's 18-year history. Announcing the decision, Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he is sorry and takes the responsibility for this.
Why has Meta decided to layoff its substantial workforce?
In a statement Zuckerberg said he miscalculated the post-Covid trends. “At the start of Covid, the world rapidly moved online and the surge of e-commerce led to outsized revenue growth. Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended. I did too, so I made the decision to significantly increase our investments.”
But the boom seen during pandemic didn't sustain for longer period. He adds, “Unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected. Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I’d expected.”
According to a report, Meta shares have lost more than two-thirds of their value.
Will the affected employee get compensation?
Meta will offer compensation to all the affected employees. It includes:
1) 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service, with no cap.
2) All remaining Paid time off (PTO) time
3) Healthcare for people and their families for six months
4) Everyone impacted will receive their November 15, 2022 vesting
5) Three months of career support with an external vendor, including early access to unpublished job leads
6) Immigration support
Laid-off employees will not be able to access Meta systems
The statement from Meta CEO read, “We made the decision to remove access to most Meta systems for people leaving today given the amount of access to sensitive information.”
However to be able to say the last goodbye, the email account is still working for the day.
Meta is planning to hire fewer people next year
The tech behemoth is extending hiring freeze through Q1 with a small number of exceptions. Zuckerberg said, “I’m going to watch our business performance, operational efficiency, and other macroeconomic factors to determine whether and how much we should resume hiring at that point.”
Zuckerberg warns for tough time ahead
“I view layoffs as a last resort, so we decided to rein in other sources of cost before letting teammates go,” Zuckerberg stated. He said that Meta will roll out more cost-cutting changes like this in the coming months. “I’m currently in the middle of a thorough review of our infrastructure spending.”
“This is a sad moment, and there’s no way around that… To those who are staying, I know this is a difficult time for you too. Not only are we saying goodbye to people we’ve worked closely with, but many of you also feel uncertainty about the future. I want you to know that we’re making these decisions to make sure our future is strong,” he wrote.